Dolby Atmos Tech Update and Insurgent Preview!

.Please see the bottom of the post for giveaway details (GIVEAWAY CLOSED)!

Last Tuesday I not only had the opportunity to attend a preview of the movie “Insurgent” (released Friday March 20, 2015) but the location was in the San Francisco office of Dolby Laboratories Inc in their theater set up for Dolby Atmos audio.

My sons and I read the Divergent book series and saw the first movie “Divergent“. Insurgent is the second this great adventure series and has also a top rate cast that includes Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Octavia Spencer, Zoe Kravitz , Noami Watts and Kate Winslet. The Divergent series is an adventure movie with a fascinating premise: there are societal divisions that classify citizens based on their aptitudes and value: Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest) and also Factionless. There is also a strong female lead (Shailene Woodley) which is always great for my boys to see.

The cinematography captures the adventure with spellbinding graphics. But what really makes the graphics come alive is the Dolby Atmos audio technology, which is part of the audio engineering process of the movie and is played out by the speakers in each theatre. Dolby Atmos creates moving audio with an object-based listening experience. So you not only see the moving train, glass breaking and other special effects, the sound makes you “feel” like you are in the action.

“Dolby Atmos is the first audio format based on audio objects rather than channels. In Dolby Atmos, any sound—the helicopter, a blaring car horn, a yelling child—can exist as an independent audio object, free of channel restrictions. It can be placed and moved anywhere, including anywhere overhead.”

Technical Details:

1. Supports up to 128 simultaneous independent audio objects in a mix for rich, realistic, and breathtaking sound.

2. Descriptive metadata captures all the director’s intent and provides customized playback for the cinema, home theater, and mobile device.”

At Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco, they have a theater (or lab as they call it) set up with Dolby Atmos. We were thrilled not only to see the movie but to be given a behind the scenes tour of the movie projection area and of the speaker setup in the Theater. The Dolby Atmos system in each theater is controlled in the projector room.

Dolby Atmos speakers are set up in the sides, in this Theater they were actually in the wall panels:

And Dolby Atmos speakers were set up in the ceiling and around the room to provide continuous sound.

To celebrate the opening of Insurgent, I am doing a giveaway starting March 22 at 6pm and ending March 27 (2015) at 6pm (GIVEAWAY CLOSED). 3 Lucky winners will each win one Insurgent giveaway pack that includes:

I read the Divergent series and loved it. I also enjoyed watching the movie Divergent. I would pick Erudite as my faction because I love knowledge and books. By the way, I seen Insurgent and it was amazing. <4

After seeing the first movie, I read all the books and loved them. I just saw Insurgent recently and although it is quite different from the book, I still liked it. Thanks for hosting such a great giveaway!

Beth Blecherman a.k.a “TechMama”

TECH BLOGGER: Shares straight talk and tips on tech, lifestyle and travel across many social media platforms including blog TechMamas.com and Twitter @TechMama. She is well know for past articles in Mashable, Laptop Magazine and Cool Mom Tech and Dot Complicated.

INFLUENCER & SPOKESPERSON: TechMamas.com media coverage includes Time.com, Forbes.com, PCMag, Parents.com, WorkingMother and more. Beth has represented many top brands as a Spokesperson online and on TV.

TECH CONSULTANT: Consults with businesses and tech startups on UX design, mobile app testing, growth marketing, social media strategy, marketing automation and online branding. Led social media campaigns by working with brands to reach their marketing goals.

PAST: Senior Manager of Business Process Integrity at Deloitte, Co-Founder of hyper-local national mom blog network called Silicon Valley Moms Group - sold to Technorati.